Devouring This Year's Festive Features: Highlights, Lowlights, and Unexpected Delights.

‘Tis the season to lounge on the couch and demolish a box of mince pies in front of a good movie, a poor film, or one that’s so bad it’s good.

This year, a selection of new holiday movies strives to join part of our holiday traditions—perhaps even joining the ranks alongside enduring classics like Home Alone, Elf, Love Actually, and Die Hard (no arguments).

Thus, in a helpful attempt to separate the winners from the losers, and to find the holiday mood, I watched as many recent festive movies as possible in a single day.

First Up: The Jonas Brothers' Holiday Flick

Starting, optimistically, on a good foot. This release is the sole 2025 entry on a popular review site's list of the best 100 festive features of all time.

The musical trio end up trapped in the UK after concluding their world tour and must get home for Christmas. Their efforts are thwarted by an malevolent Father Christmas, who breaks into song to announce they won’t get home until they “rekindle their familial spark.”

The repartee between the arguing trio is entertaining even for the uninitiated, while devotees will certainly catch lots of easter eggs as they endeavor to get back using any means of transport necessary.

It’s a travelogue of mishaps.

It’s not a timeless masterpiece, but is great for fans and a positive start to the day.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄 for Jonas Brothers fans or 🎄🎄🎄 for their loved ones who must sit through it.

Next: A Star in Panto

A-list actor Kiefer Sutherland stars as a movie actor tricked into a "panto".

“A what's a panto??” asks Sutherland’s “hard-to-work-with” and aging action hero Brad Mack, who has fallen on hard times and whose representative has deceived him into thinking he’s performing in high-class London stage.

His Aladdin cast-mates let him know he’s playing Buttons. “Absolutely not,” he insists angrily. You can guess their retort. That is, unless you’re unfamiliar with traditional panto catchphrases.

There are some hilarious moments, some heartwarming sub-plots, and the ensemble is excellent, too.

It’s the type of film that would be a bit tacky at any other time of year, but is a lot of fun at Christmas.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄🎄

A New Spin on Scrooge

Danny Dyer appears at the beginning of this film, too, delivering a signature line for the second film in a row. Might this become a budding festive ritual?

This time, he’s a crooning chauffeur who encounters Mr Sood, the modern take on Mr Scrooge from Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol.

Mr Sood is played by an actor from Kunal Nayyar and Christmas Karma is directed by Bend It Like Beckham’s Gurinder Chadha. The familiar story unfolds as the tight-fisted Mr Sood is confronted by the ghosts of Christmas past, present and future, played by Hugh Bonneville, Billy Porter, and Boy George.

This South Asian reinterpretation is at least unique from all the others, but unfortunately he’s not very captivating and Nayyar’s portrayal is lifeless—a significant issue when he’s so central to everything.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄

Noon: A BBC Special

Before lunch for a network's Christmas comedy-drama—which stars Guz Khan as a lovably grouchy guy who “isn't big on Christmas.”

But after he receives an sizable holiday payout at work, his wife (portrayed by Morgana Robinson) persuades him blowing the money on a holiday to Lapland.

There’s just one problem—he discovers there was an mistake with his bonus, which should have been £800, and he has to determine how to reimburse the difference.

Enjoyable but forgettable.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄

Early Afternoon: Champagne Problems

This is one of those holiday movies where the decorations and snow are in the backdrop—Christmas is the environment of the film rather than its main point—but it feels warm and holiday-like all the same.

Driven corporate star Sydney (starring Minka Kelly) is dispatched to a vineyard to secure an acquisition for a champagne business. On the way, she meets a guy in a book store who offers to show her Christmas in Paris.

An expert recently declared this is the top new Christmas film of the recent era. That’s a bit of a overstatement, but it is a holiday love story with a touch of class and gives the required heartwarming sensation.

The scene with a extended debate about Die Hard is very good too.

Christmas tree rating: 🎄🎄🎄

A Charming Quest

Sixteen-year-old Chris, played by Lenny Rush, holds onto his belief in Father Christmas, despite the efforts of his dad (played by James Buckley) to tell him the reality.

The truth is somewhere, and Chris sets out to find it with the expert help of a team of well-known scientists and personalities.

It’s gentle but endearing, and ideal viewing while waiting for Santa to visit.

Holiday verdict: 🎄🎄🎄

Late Afternoon: Oh. What. Fun.

Michelle Pfeiffer is the matriarch of a bickering American family who gather for the holidays—including fellow acclaimed actress Felicity Jones, Chloe Grace Moretz, Jason Schwartzman, and dad Denis Leary.

Pfeiffer begins by referencing classic festive films like National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, It’s A Wonderful Life and Home Alone, before stating: “They need to make a movie about the real champions of the holidays—moms.”

So that’s the premise, but in execution it’s really a mash-up of those inspirations, at least until Pfeiffer’s character finally finds her strength.

Festive score: 🎄🎄

Formulaic Fun

The day’s taken a dip, but fortunately here’s a new offering in the saturated market of formulaic, schmaltzy, badly acted—and utterly watchable—seasonal comfort food.

It’s a story as well-worn: An American woman travels to a picturesque cold country and ends up discovering romance.

In this case, Caprice Bourret plays a publisher